Saudi Arabia’s Water & Electricity Company (WEC) has issued request for proposal (RFP) documents to prequalified bidders for the planned Shuqaiq 3 independent water project (IWP).

WEC has set a bid submission date of 27 August for the Shuqaiq project, which will have a capacity of 450,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d).

MEED reported in February that 15 firms had been prequalified to participate in the Shuqaiq 3 tender. The client prequalified 12 developers as both ‘Lead Member’ and ‘Technical Member’, and three additional firms were prequalified solely as technical members.

The prequalified firms are:

The plant will use membrane reverse osmosis (RO) technology, and will be developed in the town of Shuqaiq, located on the Red Sea coast about 137km north of Jizan.

The Shuqaiq project will be developed under a build, own and operate model (BOO), with a project company to be formed and owned 100 per cent by the successful bidder. The successful bidder will sign a 25-year water purchase agreement (WPA) with WEC, which will be the offtaker for the produced water.

The client is aiming to tender the project and select the preferred bidder by 1 November, with a target set for signing the water purchase WPA with the successful bidder on 13 December.